My Granny's handmade tablecloth is part of my heritage...........I was named for my Granny Mabel Eikleberry and have cherished the tablecloth she crocheted many years ago. My grandchildren now call me "Granny", but little do they know the rich heritage of the one who came before me. As a school teacher in one-room schoolhouses in rural Arkansas, she helped many a child make his way in the world and many to college from her tutelage. She was "chief cook and bottle washer" in the Eikleberry household from cooking and sewing to crocheting to gathering eggs to keeping up with 4 children and my Grandpa. She mid-wifed and helped many other families--whatever it took. Many a child she would bring home and make a new, clean dress or shirt for wearing back to school the next day.
This tablecloth is now a part of many of my Willow House parties and I love it with the trend-forward Mario Batalia Italian Stitch dishes. I have her tablecloth and her name, but I'll never have the sheer gumption she had for living.
